Spirit that hears each one of us,
hears all that is --
Listens, listens, hears us out --
inspire us now!
Our own pulse beats in every
stranger's throat.
And also within the flowered ground
beneath our feet.
We can hear it in water, in wood, and
even in stone.
We are earth of this earth, and
we are bone of this bone.
This is a prayer I sing, for we
have forgotten this and so
the earth is perishing.
What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest, at night, cherished by this wonderful, intelligible, perfectly innocent speech, the most comforting speech in the world, the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges, and the talk of the watercourses everywhere in the hollows! Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. It will talk as long as it wants, this rain. As long as it talks, I am going to listen.